Harmonious Thelonious - Listen

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  • "American minimalism vs. African drumming vs. European sequencing." These are the words that Stefan Schwander has used to describe his Harmonious Thelonious. But what does that mean exactly? American minimalism indicates a fondness for melodies that are easy on the ears. African drumming is easy enough to understand, and so is European sequencing—although it might be helpful to know that Schwander is from Germany specifically. It's a fascinating combination, and one that Schwander clearly has been inspired by: Listen is his second album in as many years under the name Harmonious Thelonious. The immediate difference you'll hear on Listen is how clean it sounds. Talking took in the tracks from an EP called On Stages, which either featured Schwander and two compatriots performing live or approximated it pretty damn well. You can hear crowd noise in the background, and things get distorted just enough to make you feel the urgency—but not enough to get an earache. It's the sort of rawness that is largely missing from Listen, whose clean lines hug rather than push. What made Talking and, say, Cut Hands' Afro Noise I such exciting examples of world music appropriation was how they were able to capture the energy and transform it. Listen has different aims. Talking was wonderfully one-note, while this album tackles a variety of rhythms: "Ting Tong" shakes and shimmys rather than barreling straight ahead, "Vernachlassigte Muziek" builds its structure almost completely from revolving melodies. But save "Drums of Steel," nothing here really cooks in the way that "Makeshift" or "Tautological Speakers" did on Talking. Even though tracks like the rich and complex "Trans Harmonic System" prove that there is a lot of territory left to be explored, it feels in this case that the album titles are 100% apt: Schwander was speaking his own language on Talking, while he spent a bit too much time listening (and thinking) on this one.
  • Tracklist
      01. Argwohnische Muziek 02. Trans Harmonic System 03. Marak 04. Profaner Tanz 05. Ting Tong 06. Drums Of Steel 07. A.O. 08. Vernachlassigte Muziek
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